I have no introduction for this, only that this chapter gave me Hell to write so I hope you enjoy.

Chapter 12: A Puzzle Without an Answer

"This is insane." Chelmey muttered. His words echoed in the silence that had followed the explanation of the 'puzzle'. "He's utterly insane."

"That's not exactly a revelation to us all." Descole spat. "Targent is insane, it's only right that any leader of theirs is equally so." Chelmey gave an irritated grunt.

"Rich, coming from you." He responded. "Oh, yes. I know all about you, Jean Descole. You're not exactly clean yourself. In fact, back at the Yard you're still considered a suspected Targent miscreant." Descole made to challenge Chelmey, but Emmy pushed him back.

"We don't have time for this!" She warned the two. "Luke and… And the girl are in danger, as are all of the victims of the Dream Catchers. We need to think fast."

"Weren't you listening? You need at least five people to 'solve the puzzle', and there's only four of us." Chelmey looked truly disheartened and helpless. "We can't win, that's how he set this whole thing up!"

"But he didn't factor in us as individuals." She pointed out. "We have varying skills; for example, me and the Phantom of the Opera over here are trained fighters. Perhaps one of us could take on the guards instead of two."

"But we don't know how many guards there will be." Descole added, somewhat affronted by the nickname. "Besides, judging by what we've seen, I don't suppose it will matter if we can fight or not. The Inspector is right, Targent's Leader just wants to watch us run around like ants in his little maze. I suppose that as long as we arrive with the right amount of people, the guards will more or less let us through. If we do not, they'll take action to stop us."

"Then that's that, I suppose." Chelmey said, defeatedly. "There's no foreseeable way to achieve both outcomes, so we need to focus on just the one: liberating the hostages."

"What? No!" Emmy objected. "There has to be a way, right, Professor?" She looked to him hopefully. "It's like you always say: every puzzle has an answer!"

The Professor remained silent. Insane as he was, the man behind this puzzle was smart. There was no logical reason behind giving the team a chance to wipe Targent's progress. No, he knew what they would choose, he just wanted to give the illusion of choice, to dangle the opportunity in front of them so that they would forever wonder 'what if we could have done both? What if we did things differently?" So, this 'leader', this illusive ghost, liked to play with thoughts and emotions? Well, it was hardly surprising, thinking back to how he had blackmailed Emmy, how he seemed to lure the unfortunate into working for him, and the very nature of the Dream Catchers. The Professor looked up at Emmy's pleading expression. The conclusion he had reached was so unsatisfactory, every bone in his body wanted a better answer, to outsmart the leader. Perhaps that was the intention? His need for a better solution could overtime drive him mad. well, he would just have to learn to live with it.

"Targent can wait." He said at last. "Right now, the victims are our priority." Emmy looks as disappointed as he felt, but she did not argue with him.

"Right then" Chelmey came in, a certain confidence back in his tone now that there was a plan. "Shall we make our way to the control room?"

"I think someone ought to go to the exit," Layton suggested. "Just in case there is any information about other Targent bases there, or what they are using this 'data' for."

"Ah, yes. Exactly what I was thinking, Layton." Chelmey babbled, unconvincingly.

"Then we go in twos." Descole decided. "Layton and I will go to the control room-"

"Emmy will accompany me to the control room." The Professor interrupted. "I imagine we will be able to awaken Luke and Flora the fastest."

"Unless there's any particular reason for you wanting to be the one to rescue the children?" Emmy teased darkly. They had quite forgotten that she had been there, hiding in the shadows, when Layton had revealed the truth behind Flora's parents. "Maybe you want to make things up to a certain someone?" Descole growled, but restrained himself from lashing out at her.

"I don't know what you're referring to." He said, pointedly.

"Enough." The Professor scolded. "It's time we were moving."

"Does that mean I'm buddying with this criminal!? Unbelieveable!" Chelmey complained. Honestly, Layton thought, they are behaving like children.

"The quicker we start, the quicker it will be over with!" He commanded, a touch more aggressively than he intended. After a few good luck nods to each other they left the chilling surveillance room.

"You're two minutes starts now. Have fun, my friends."

Using signs painted on the walls of the corridors and Emmy's limited knowledge of the building's layout, she and the Professor soon found the control room with less than a minute left on the clock. There was a scanning panel on either side of the door, and as promised, when they placed a hand each upon one, the doors opened. The inside was utterly black for a moment, then lights flickered on; it was not a large room, but every wall was covered in dials, buttons, flashing lights and switches. At the centre, two Dream Catchers had been hauled in, and within held Luke and Flora. The two looked so worn, so battered; Luke's jumper bore several tears. His face was covered in grim and scratches, and his signature blue flat cap was lying abandoned on the floor. Flora looked worse still; as well as the filth, a large, slightly swollen bruise was forming on her cheek where she had been struck by the ruthless Captain at . She was also blacked and burned by the flame she had ignited, saving them all from capture. Despite this, they looked peaceful, finally able to rest after all their trauma.

Emmy ran to Luke, relief flooding over her. "Luke! Can you hear me?" She said desperately.

"We must switch off the power." The Professor reminded her. "Then it will be safe to wake them." They searched for a few moments before finding the right lever. Typically, the lever itself was a puzzle, but the Professor solved it with ease, and with a mere four seconds of time left, he pulled down the lever. The light with the words 'Hall of Dreams Power' written below it flickered out.

They turned back to the Dream Catchers expectantly. They had hoped for the descending whir of the machines shutting down, but nothing happened. Luke and Flora remained still. The time ran out, and still no change. After closer inspection, Emmy found a power lead connected to the two machines, leading to an outlet on the closest wall.

"Professor, look at this." She beckoned. Layton approached; the plug was screwed into place, making it impossible to disconnect the power without the right tools.

"Hm." He frowned. "It would seem that we will have to wake them via the Safety Mechanism." Despite never having had it explained by the others, from Chel- the leader's description of the Safety Mechanism, he had a pretty good idea of how to release them. "They should still be able to hear us. Emmy, go to Luke and talk to him; explain what has happened, tell him who you are." Emmy nodded and jumped straight to the task. She ran to Luke's side: it had been so long since she had last seen him. Three years ago she had left without saying goodbye, leaving him to become the Professor's apprentice number one. He had been almost eleven at the time, still quite small, yet every bit as stubborn and determined as he seemed to be now. Now, three years on, so much had changed; she had tried to start a new life and a career in journalism, while the Professor and Luke seemed to have move on, and even replaced her with this Flora girl. The boy even looked different: other than being slightly taller, the chub was gone from his cheeks, he was less childlike. How old was he now? Thirteen? Fourteen? That seemed about right, he looked as if he was about to hit his growth spurt.

All this time that Emmy had been working against them, she had pretended as if she couldn't see or hear her old friends, just to save herself the pain. It had been hard with the Professor, who was so unchanged from when they had been colleagues and companions. There had been many times when she had almost given in and turned on Targent, but Luke was so much more grown up and different than she remembered that she had been able to distance herself from him quite easily. That was until he had stopped her from attacking Descole, when she had held the knife to his throat, a perfect parallel to her betrayal in the Azran Sanctuary. His fear, confusion and shock was exactly the same, and suddenly her denial had evaporated. Suddenly, he was the young boy that she had grown so close to. That was what had finally pushed her, not only having Luke back, but also where she could protect him: she hadn't told the others, and didn't intend to, but her Uncle Leon was not the only person Targent had threatened to kill. Whenever she faltered, they had no problem reminding her that out of the group – the intelligent Professor, the genius scientist and the girl with the huge inheritance – Luke was the expendable one.

The Professor had already started mumbling words into the girl's ear. Emmy heard something along the words of 'your father' and 'proud of you'. She knew better than to listen further, and instead got to work on waking Luke.

Despite the shaking, he was relatively calm. Luke took a deep breath, this was it, at last, he was taking the entry exam for Gressenheller University. He had been studying for weeks, revising every note and fact over and over and over. Now he was sat as a small desk in a large hall, with hundreds of other eager students. The invigilator announced the start of the exam. Luke opened is paper and began to read. He had to get full marks, he had the be the best!

Two of the panels on this digital clock are broken. The broken panels never light up. Any of the unlit panels in the image could be the broken ones. With that in mind, how many different times could the clock be showing?

Luke read through the question twice, then began to work out his answer on the provided paper. He got through three questions, and was moving onto the fourth when he heard something.

"Luke!" The call of his name startled him. He quickly glanced around the otherwise silent hall. "Luke! It's me, Emmy!" He looked behind him, and there was Emmy, sat at a desk and smiling mischievously at him. He was aware of the invigilator making a beeline for them, and went back to his paper. No one was going to ruin this for him, not even Emmy. "Listen, you were taken away without us realising. Targent-" Luke tried desperately to block her out, but the invigilator was already there, shouting in his face, but somehow his words seemed less real than Emmy's. "- in a Dream Catcher"

Then it made sense. He wasn't really here, in the exam hall of Gressenheller. He was, in reality, trapped in a Dream Catcher, just like Descole and the Professor had been. The thought made him panic. The hall, the desk and the shouting invigilator started to fade away. He had to wake, he had to wake up!

"A conscious subject inside one of our artificial dreams could cause some real damage to the system."

The words Chelmey had said while under someone else's control suddenly came back to him. He had been confident that they wouldn't be able to use that information against Targent, as he wouldn't be putting the adults back into Dream Catchers, but apparently, even after all they had done for the team, they had never considered Luke and Flora a threat. It occurred to Luke, as the dream vanished, that this was perhaps the only chance any of them would get at cheating Targent at their own game. But he was starting to wake up now, the voices were growing louder and light was flooding through his slightly parted eyelids. He tried to squeeze them shut. This was his only chance, and he was about to lose it!

"Professor…" He had been consoling a very confused but awake Flora when Emmy called over to him nervously. She looked worried. "I… I can't wake him up." The Professor, unnerved, came to have a look: Luke was scrunching up his face, his fingers twitching a little. He certainly seemed on the verge of waking, but it looked as if he was intentionally trying to stay unconscious. This bewildered the Professor for a moment, why on Earth would he-? Then he to remembered what Chelmey had said, and it dawned on the Professor what his apprentice was trying to do. The machine was starting to click, about to release Luke despite his struggle to prevent it. The Professor glanced at the panel of dials on the side of the Dream Catcher; maybe, just maybe, his apprentice was close to the answer, to besting Targent and its leader.

"Luke…" He said, hoarsely. "If you can hear me, try and find a way into Targent's computer system. Do what you can, we are all counting on you." Hesitantly, he reached for the dial labelled 'gas intensity' and turned it up. Luke seemed to sink back into his sleep, and the machine stopped clicking. Emmy and Flora tried to protest, but he silenced them, and began to explain his idea.

In the past, Layton had let Luke do many things that perhaps he shouldn't have: drive heavy machinery, climb robots, sacrifice himself for humanity, and yet he never failed to make his mentor proud. If he trusted anyone with this task, it was Luke.

The exam hall came back into view. The invigilator was still there, screaming silently. He wasn't entirely sure how, but he was back in the dream, this time fully conscious. Luke felt different, stronger, smarter, more powerful than he ever felt in his life. He got up from the desk and shoved the shouting man in the chest, causing him to shatter into dust. He was satisfied with this, and just for fun, he held a hand out towards all the desks. They, and the students sat at them, began to float, bobbing like apples in water. Luke grinned: This was his place. Here, he had control.

Of course, he couldn't waste any more time playing here. He had heard the Professor, he needed to find a way of attacking the computer systems. He had to think, to remember, but this wasn't the right setting. With a click of his fingers the hall changed into the Professor's Gressenheller office. This was much more comfortable. He paced up and down the room, trying to recall what else Chelmey had said:

"Dreams, like minds, are tricky… Sometimes, people learn how to spot when they are dreaming… They can control their dreams… If we can control them through their dreams, what's to stop it going the other way around?... Brain data and computer data ain't so different."

Luke pondered over all of the information; while connected to the Dream Catcher, he was connected to the Targent computer system. In this state, perhaps he could manipulate the data. Heck, he already had! The exam hall was made specifically to put him in a situation in which he would have to problem solve, and he had simply transformed it into a more comfortable environment. The actual manipulation was easy, he just had to put it in a way that he could understand. With that in mind, he just had to work out a way of picturing all of the Dream Catcher data. He searched his memory, where had he seen a lot of information in one place before?

The Scotland Yard Archives. He had been there once or twice with the Professor. It was where every criminal offence, very victim and every crime scene were bound in paper, ready for the police to use whenever they needed it. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again he was among the celling high shelves, tidily stocked with paper folders. He searched them, reading the spines of those closest to him.

Theodore Bronev/Hershel Layton

Hershel Bronev/Desmond Sycamore/Jean Descole

Flora Sycamore/Fields/Reinhold

There was a fourth one next to these, but it seemed to be glitching and shaking, as if furiously trying to escape the shelf. He took this one in his hands.

lUKe TRitON (CORRUPTED)

He couldn't help the smile of pride.

Something appeared at the end of the corridor of shelves. A sign was flashing the words 'Copying all data'. Before Luke could comprehend what this meant, the world split in two. He found it impossible to explain the sensation afterwards; it was as if a fourth dimension had been opened up. A second version of the room was slowly being pulled away, without him in it. Luke realised that he only had seconds to act; once the copy escaped him, he would not be able to destroy it. Which begged the question – how to destroy the files? Could he just imagine a large 'delete' button? No, that didn't work. Even here, he had to act in a way that made sense. He thought through it again. Say for a minute that this was the real Archives, how would he go about destroying every file? Just ripping them up one by one would take too long. A fire, maybe? Yeah, that might just work! After all, all the files were made of paper, so why shouldn't they burn? He tried to imagine the fire, but for some reason it wasn't happening. Changing things was easy, but creating them out of nothing would take some work. He would have to start small: a match, a harmless match. He felt for the tiny stick of wood, the rounded edge, the exact feel and colour of it, and there the match was, in his hand. He found the rough edge of a shelf and struck the match. After a couple of tries it caught a flame. He held it to the edge of the corrupted file, but rather than spreading slowly as he had expected, it burst into a blaze in his hands. Despite feeling no heat or pain, he flung it from himself in shock. The file hit a shelf, igniting the wooden beam. The fire spread along the framework, catching the files with it. Luke watched with mixed glee and anxiety as the files baring the names of his friends were engulfed and quickly reduced to hot ash. Soon, the entire shelf was ablaze.

The sign was flashing again. "Unauthorised access detected." The second copy of the room stopped moving – even there, the fire was burning white and clear. An alarm started to ring - they knew something was wrong. Luke was just wondering would happen now, when it began to rain. In confusion, he looked up; sprinklers had been activated, water poured down on the fire. It sizzled and started to die, stopping the inferno from spreading, but many files were already ruined. There were still hundreds of shelves, but they were getting soggy. They were trying to stop him, they were trying to stop the flames spreading any further, but Luke was not ready to give up yet. He grabbed a handful of still burning folders – it felt very weird, clutching what should have been red hot embers to his chest. He ran down the corridor, throwing burning folders this way and that. Some sizzled and died, but most caught and infected others with their flame. The sprinklers intensified, but it was too late now. The flame, powered by Luke's passion and anger had reached all corners of the room. They danced and flickered in celebration. The copy vanished, the sign exploded, and everything ended.

It looked as if he was having a nightmare. Luke writhed a little, beads of sweat forming on his brow. She knew better than to question her guardian, but ever bone in her was screaming for Flora to let Luke wake up. She hated seeing him like this, and the woman, this Emmy, seemed just as disturbed, watching in shocked silence. The Professor kept a straight face throughout, watching carefully for any change. He didn't like this anymore than they did, but Luke had wanted to try, and if there was even a small chance…

The boy's body relaxed, slumped and calm. The Professor immediately turned off the gas entirely. The boy had done enough.

"… Luke?" Luke couldn't tell if his eyes were open or closed. Either way made no difference, he seemed to be floating in complete blackness. Had it worked? It must have, he must have wiped the system entirely. Now there were no dreams left for him to have, he was just stuck in a void. Well, his work was done now, right? He could wake up now.

"It's okay Luke, you did your best! Please wake up…" Then again, he was very tired. He hadn't noticed until now just how shattered he was. Besides, hadn't he just single handily foiled an evil plan? He deserved the rest.

Luke's breathing grew slower and shallower. Flora wished she hadn't seen the moment of panic in the Professor's expression. "Luke. Luke, my boy, wake up now." He shook him gently. Flora gasped, and grabbed one of his hands. It was so cold.

"Luke! Luke, listen to me!" She pleaded. She could feel the sobs trying to come, but she had cried so much already that she had no tears left to give. "Stop scaring us, you idiot! Just wake up!" Emmy joined them now. The Professor just managed to stop her ripping Luke from the clutches of the Dream Catcher..

The voices were just echoes of echoes now, nowhere near as present as they had been during his exam dream. He didn't care, he didn't care what they were saying, he just wanted to sleep. He let himself fall back, and found the darkness so welcoming, so much deeper than any sleep he had fallen into before. Just as he was about drift off into eternal slumber, he heard Flora crying. Even when all other sound couldn't reach him, her distress did. Reluctantly he tried to get up, but it was so much harder than falling down. The struggle was draining, the darkness pulling him back, begging him to give up, but he refused. As a gentleman, he had to help a lady. As Luke, he had to comfort his Flora. He reached forward. It felt like climbing a sandy slope, slippery and coating him in darkness. Keep trying, keep trying, please, just keep going.

Then there was light.

He gasped for air, he lungs filling as if free from suffocation. Before he even had a chance to open his eyes, he was falling. Three pairs of arms caught him and pulled him up to his feet, but his legs gave way and he fell back down. He tried to move, but he wanted was to go back to the depths. People were laughing, crying, talking, but it all blurred. Someone rested his head on their lap, stroking his hair and saying something in a calming tone. His right was clasped in someone else's, who was squeezing it tightly. His left hand was held at the wrist, as if someone was checking his pulse. There seemed to be shouts coming from somewhere as more, somewhat familiar voices sounded across the room. Nothing was getting clearer, but there were good people here, and that was all he needed. With that final though in mind, he let himself fall back to sleep. A good, natural sleep.